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harry potter - How did nobody at Hogwarts (especially Dumbledore) figure out what killed Myrtle?


The information is all clearly there, since Harry and Ron, two 12-year-olds, were able to figure it out (with a bit of help from a petrified Hermione), thought at the time Aragog was much younger and smaller and wouldn't have been as easy to find, so maybe the "spiders flee before it" clue would have been lost, although to be honest it's not exactly as vital a piece of the puzzle as the others.


Dumbledore himself is obviously a very capable and intelligent Wizard, and after Myrtle died she came back as a ghost and was able to provide (admittedly limited) details of her own death.


I don't know about you, but I'd have thought at least someone would have tried to piece it together at the time, and it wouldn't have taken them long to figure out "Oh, she saw a pair of big yellow eyes after hearing a boy speak a funny language in the bathroom and dropped dead? Sounds like she might have heard somebody order a Basilisk to look her in the eyes in parseltongue", especially if the investigator in question was someone like Dumbledore.


Do we have any info on why nobody seemed to have found out anything in 50 years prior to Harry Potter (and, probably more importantly, Hermione Granger) turning up at Hogwarts?



Answer



Dumbledore did know what was going on. He just couldn't stop it.



“The question is not who,” said Dumbledore, his eyes on Colin. “The question is, how. …”




... which he said after Creevy was petrified, and saw the melted camera. He pretty clearly knew what was up, that a Basilisk was in the school. Having researched Voldemort's history extensively, and had some firsthand experience as a teacher during Riddle's time as a student, he had ample opportunity to put the pieces together.


Unfortunately, that doesn't help him identify how Voldemort had infiltrated the school this time to let it loose, and stop it from that direction, as the diary is something he had no knowledge of. And it also doesn't mean he could get into the Chamber of Secrets, to stop the Basilisk at its source.


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